Syrian war leaves children facing struggle to survive

The medical meltdown includes instances of car batteries being used to power dialysis machines.

By Roger Hearn

March 10, 2014 — 2.00am

Imagine you have a young child whose legs must be amputated because hospitals don't have the proper equipment to treat them, or a world in which a patient opts to be knocked unconscious with a metal bar because there are no anaesthetics. Imagine a life where newborn babies die in their incubators because of power cuts.

Horrific, isn't it? Yet this is reality for people inside Syria who have endured the hell and barbarity of war for three years.

Illustration: Jim Pavlidis.

When I was living in Damascus three years ago, the city felt safe, the health system was comprehensive and children went to school each day with the prospect of some sort of future. But hopes of a decent future have unravelled since the uprising that started on March 15, 2011 morphed into a civil war. My wife and two children were forced to flee the country because of growing insecurity, and I left nine months later.

Since then the bloodshed has spiralled out of control, and the impact on children has been enormous. In the past three years more than 1.2 million children have fled to neighbouring countries, at least 10,000 have been killed, and about 4.5 million remain in need of humanitarian assistance inside Syria.

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However, it is not just the bullets and shells that are killing and maiming children; they are also dying from a lack of medical care. Syria's health system has been shattered.

Save the Children's new report, A Devastating Toll: The impact of three years of war on the health of Syria's children, highlights the horrifying health impacts the war has had on children.

It finds that hospitals have been targeted, patients attacked in their hospital beds and doctors killed or imprisoned while on duty. In Aleppo, a city of 2.3 million people - roughly the same size as Brisbane - just 36 doctors remain where there should be at least 2500.

In fact, across Syria almost half of all doctors have fled to neighbouring countries. Not only are there fewer medical professionals to treat patients, but the production of drugs has dropped by a staggering 70 per cent. Meanwhile, across Syria, 60 per cent of the nation's hospitals are damaged or destroyed. Giving birth in Syria is a battle of life and death. Before the conflict, 96 per cent of mothers in Syria had some form of medical assistance when giving birth; now it is less than a quarter and in some besieged areas like Homs there is none.

Samira, a 28-year-old mother-of-four was five months pregnant when she was forced to flee her village. Her husband had been killed in the fighting. She and her children spent two months in the bitter cold travelling to a shelter they were told would be safe, and she went into labour soon after they arrived - two months premature.

There was no hospital or medical staff nearby, nor any special care facilities. Other women helped deliver the baby, a boy, but he survived just two hours. Sadly, Samira's story is not unique.

Pregnant women and new mothers in Syria face huge difficulties accessing any kind of medical assistance, while their children battle overwhelming odds just to survive.

Deadly diseases such as measles and meningitis, practically unheard of before the conflict, are back in abundance, including polio. Vaccination programs have also collapsed.

While the picture is bleak, some doctors are making heroic efforts to treat patients, and devising innovative ways of saving lives. One doctor told Save the Children his organisation was using car batteries to power home-made dialysis machines for children with chronic diseases. But it shouldn't have come to this.

Save the Children is calling for parties to the conflict not to target health workers or health facilities, a violation of the Geneva Conventions.

And if the political will can be found to allow chemical weapons inspectors to reach besieged areas, the international community must surely be able to find the will to allow medicine, vaccines and other desperately needed aid to reach children.

Humanitarian agencies such as Save the Children must have unfettered access to all areas of Syria, including across conflict lines, to besieged areas and across borders.

Last month, the Australian government helped unite the UN Security Council to secure a resolution on unhindered humanitarian access. Yet this resolution is only as good as the political will that underpins it. Australia and all nations must swiftly put their strong words into action and implement it.

It is impossible to know when the conflict will end. But what we can do is unite in support of the innocent Syrian people who have endured years of unspeakable suffering. In the name of humanity we must not forget them and we must not falter in our efforts to help those in need inside Syria and across the region.

Dr Roger Hearn, based in Jordan, is Middle East director of Save the Children.